4 ms·

Why is it a bad idea? I live in a dense European city, and the other day I was driving down a busy road at a certain time of day, and was made to undergo a bre

by avar 3y ago

Why is it a bad idea? I live in a dense European city, and the other day I was driving down a busy road at a certain time of day, and was made to undergo a breathalyzer, along with anyone else going the same route. If I'd failed the test, would I have been the subject of injustice? After all it would probably be true that had I been driving drunk I'd likely have gotten away with it if I was driving in a more rural area. Now, in the case of the article an AI system accurately predicted a crime being committed. So, to extend that to my example: If the police hadn't tested me at all, because they could have used some AI system to spot that I wasn't driving like a drunk person, we'd all be ... worse off? Surely such systems could benefit everyone. They'd be better at ignoring the law-abiding, and be more effective at catching criminals.

jacquesm 3y ago
You can't compare the use of a breathalyzer which takes manpower to operate and analyze the results of to something that you can run 24x7 year after year. Such an increase in capability turns the whole principle of policing on its head. Note that there is no brake on this at all, not even in principle. You could be followed from the cradle to the grave by technology and if it gets it wrong the onus will be on you to prove that. That's what you get when you start with the assumption that everybody is guilty. Your breathalyzer results are the result of a fairly simple bit of chemistry, one that is reliable enough in practice to have a low enough number of false positives that it is deemed acceptable, and in case of a positive test there is a backup test to ensure that a false positive doesn't lead to detrimental effects. AI based mass surveillance starts out from the premise that if you make everybody a suspect and then filter out the 'good people' all you are left with is the bad apples. But that is not how law enforcement is supposed to work. It's possible that you would like to change the whole presumption of innocence concept. But until that is the case any kind of surveillance should be specific and limited in scope as much as possible so that ordinary citizens can live their lives unobserved by the authorities. I recognize the power of utilitarian arguments, but they are a very bad idea when you start basing your law enforcement rules of engagement on them. There are people that can make these arguments far more eloquently and from a more informed perspective, so I'd like to close with a link to an article about this that may help shed some more light on this. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/the-dangers-of-surveillance/ https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/the-dangers-of-su... There are many more like it but this is a pretty good starting point.
- avar 3y ago
  > Such an increase in capability turns the whole principle > of policing on its head. Another way of looking at this is that we're getting a computer-assisted regression back to the historical norm. If I lived in a small village I'd probably be waived through a breathalyzer checkpoint, as it would be well known that I don't drink. Similarly the local cops would know who's acting suspiciously in a manner similar to the subject of the article, and would have pulled him over via traditional policing methods. > [...]That's what you get when you start with the assumption > that everybody is guilty. I think there's a clear line to be drawn between systems being discussed here, which are inferring things about your behavior in public, v.s. the more slippery slope of Minority Report-style thoughtcrime. > [...]so I'd like to close with a link to an article about[...] Thanks, yeah I'm quite familiar with them. I'll just note that there's a bit of a prevailing difference in philosophy between the US & European perspective on this. I happen to like the American one better in principle, but whenever I visit policing seems to be more intrusive in everyday life as a practical matter. So I'm not interested in continuing the argument. I'll only note that at the start of this thread I raised a question that's entirely orthogonal to this. I.e. whether you agree with (to use your words) the "assumption of guilt" or not, it seems like an odd hill to die on to claim that such a system (or lack of one) is injust if it's not equally rolled out to the entire population, and all socioeconomic groups.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > it seems like an odd hill to die on to claim that such a system (or lack of one) is injust if it's not equally rolled out to the entire population, and all socioeconomic groups. It isn't equally rolled out to to all socioeconomic groups because 'criminal behavior' automatically disenfranchises the poor and the people of color (or both) because they are more likely to engage in such behavior. This is exactly why the 'war on drugs' really is the 'war on blacks'. A war on crime would be no different. But since you are not interested in continuing the argument we'll let it rest, but it does make me wonder why you started it in the first place.

by avar 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

You can't compare the use of a breathalyzer which takes manpower to operate and analyze the results of to something that you can run 24x7 year after year. Such an increase in capability turns the whole principle of policing on its head. Note that there is no brake on this at all, not even in principle. You could be followed from the cradle to the grave by technology and if it gets it wrong the onus will be on you to prove that. That's what you get when you start with the assumption that everybody is guilty. Your breathalyzer results are the result of a fairly simple bit of chemistry, one that is reliable enough in practice to have a low enough number of false positives that it is deemed acceptable, and in case of a positive test there is a backup test to ensure that a false positive doesn't lead to detrimental effects. AI based mass surveillance starts out from the premise that if you make everybody a suspect and then filter out the 'good people' all you are left with is the bad apples. But that is not how law enforcement is supposed to work. It's possible that you would like to change the whole presumption of innocence concept. But until that is the case any kind of surveillance should be specific and limited in scope as much as possible so that ordinary citizens can live their lives unobserved by the authorities. I recognize the power of utilitarian arguments, but they are a very bad idea when you start basing your law enforcement rules of engagement on them. There are people that can make these arguments far more eloquently and from a more informed perspective, so I'd like to close with a link to an article about this that may help shed some more light on this. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/the-dangers-of-surveillance/ https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/the-dangers-of-su... There are many more like it but this is a pretty good starting point.

avar 3y ago
> Such an increase in capability turns the whole principle > of policing on its head. Another way of looking at this is that we're getting a computer-assisted regression back to the historical norm. If I lived in a small village I'd probably be waived through a breathalyzer checkpoint, as it would be well known that I don't drink. Similarly the local cops would know who's acting suspiciously in a manner similar to the subject of the article, and would have pulled him over via traditional policing methods. > [...]That's what you get when you start with the assumption > that everybody is guilty. I think there's a clear line to be drawn between systems being discussed here, which are inferring things about your behavior in public, v.s. the more slippery slope of Minority Report-style thoughtcrime. > [...]so I'd like to close with a link to an article about[...] Thanks, yeah I'm quite familiar with them. I'll just note that there's a bit of a prevailing difference in philosophy between the US & European perspective on this. I happen to like the American one better in principle, but whenever I visit policing seems to be more intrusive in everyday life as a practical matter. So I'm not interested in continuing the argument. I'll only note that at the start of this thread I raised a question that's entirely orthogonal to this. I.e. whether you agree with (to use your words) the "assumption of guilt" or not, it seems like an odd hill to die on to claim that such a system (or lack of one) is injust if it's not equally rolled out to the entire population, and all socioeconomic groups.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > it seems like an odd hill to die on to claim that such a system (or lack of one) is injust if it's not equally rolled out to the entire population, and all socioeconomic groups. It isn't equally rolled out to to all socioeconomic groups because 'criminal behavior' automatically disenfranchises the poor and the people of color (or both) because they are more likely to engage in such behavior. This is exactly why the 'war on drugs' really is the 'war on blacks'. A war on crime would be no different. But since you are not interested in continuing the argument we'll let it rest, but it does make me wonder why you started it in the first place.